1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a rear vehicle body structure.
2. Description of the Related Art
A general rear vehicle body structure has a spare-tire storage section at the rear of a floor panel, and a spare tire can be stored in this spare-tire storage section. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,739,641 discloses a spare-tire storage section formed of resin. By thus being formed of resin, the spare-tire storage section can have a weight smaller than that of a spare-tire storage section formed of steel.
The spare-tire storage section has a substantially circular bottom portion such as to receive a spare tire. This may hinder air from smoothly flowing in one direction at a uniform flow velocity state (so-called flow-regulated state) along the bottom portion of the spare-tire storage section during traveling of the vehicle. That is, it is difficult for the bottom portion of the spare-tire storage section to have a function as an undercover that covers the bottom of the rear vehicle body structure. For this reason, a separate aerodynamic undercover needs to be provided on the lower side of the spare-tire storage section. This hinders weight reduction and cost reduction.
In addition, the rigidity of the resin spare-tire storage section is lower than that of the steel spare-tire storage section. As a method of increasing the rigidity of the resin spare-tire storage section, it is conceivable to mold the spare-tire storage section from resin reinforced by glass fiber (e.g., FRP). However, when the spare-tire storage section is molded from resin containing glass fiber, it is difficult to reduce the weight and cost of the spare-tire storage section.